Month: February 2017

February 25, 2017

CPI Thermal Switches Don’t Need to Come In From The Cold…

Lets face it… electronic stuff packed away in some cramped, poorly ventilated enclosure can get hot. Really hot. And CPI thermal switches are one of the planet’s best solutions to monitoring and shutting down hot equipment in remote places before bad things happen.

But what about when things get cold? Like really really cold? Like when it’s so cold your electronics can’t function properly or accurately? What is an engineer to do then except put on some extra layers and hope for global warming?

CPI Thermal Switches – With Low Temperature Set Points!

It turns out that CPI is one of the very few manufacturers of high endurance thermal switches that can do low temperature set points. Well below freezing in fact, and we do them reliably. Take our standard M1 Series Bimetal Thermal Switch. Our switch can be programmed to a set point of -17C to 343C with tolerance of +/- 2C.

Example Low Temperature Thermal Switch Application

Not long ago we shipped GE some of our thermal switches for use on a Wind Farm project developed on a 540ha site in the East Dam region of Bac Lieu province, Vietnam, the 99.2MW Bac Lieu near-shore wind farm is Asia’s first offshore wind farm in the Mekong Delta region.

Bac-Lieu-Province-wind-powerOur M1001 was deployed here as a fail-safe detector in the following way: The windmills depend on critical voltage converters to translate the mechanical energy of the turbine to electrical energy. But these converters have a lower limit on the temperature under which they can safely operate. Our switch is meant to be a cold temperature indicator that the converter controller software reads. If the temperature hits the low temperature set point (in this case -3C) it is a signal that the internal heating system for the voltage converter has failed to turn on. To prevent a failure, our switch sends a signal to fault and shut down the converter.

The phased development of the Bac Lieu wind farm included the installation of 62 1.6MW wind turbines, supplied by General Electric (GE). Construction commenced in September 2010 and the first phase was grid-connected in May 2013. The wind farm became fully operational in January 2016.

The Cold Truth About CPI Thermal Switches

For over 70 years CPI has been making thermal switches that go where other technologies can not. Whatever your thermal application, hot or cold, CPI is likely to have the most robust and reliable standalone thermal switching solution you will find anywhere.

Call us today to discuss your thermal switch application.

Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/cpi-thermal-swiches-dont-need-to-come-in-from-the-cold/

February 10, 2017

Lift Controls Reach New Heights With CPI Switches.

One of the more overlooked uses of CPI’s line of waterproof limit switches may be its selection for a wide variety of outdoor, harsh duty lift activation systems. These systems have a number of attributes that make CPI waterproof pendant switchesa perfect solution:

  1. Lift switches are often hand actuated by humans.
  2. The switches are exposed to outdoor conditions of wind, dust, oil splashes or heavy rain or salt spray.
  3. The switches are subject to high vibration such as on a vehicle or boat.
  4. The switches have a high electro-mechanical endurance requirement due to the inconvenience and expense of replacing them. Our “snap action” contact design has been tested to over 500,000 “contactor” electrical cycles.
  5. Theses switches are commonly mounted in waterproof switch panels. We manufacture both the panels and panel mount versions of the switches

Applications for CPI Lift Control Switches

For decades now, our E1 series waterproof limit switches have found their way into a variety of lift-gate control and positioning applications, across a wide variety of industries. Just of few of those include:

  • Waterproof lift-gate control for moving vans and delivery vehicles.
  • Compactor control for Sanitation vehicles and Compactors.
  • Manual Lift controls for forklifts and tele-handlers.
  • Boat lift controls that are sometimes positioned on or near seawater.
  • Winch Controls for boat and truck mounted winches
  • Spool valve control for Toyota lift trucks. By using our B7151-18 to switch between hydraulic circuits, a spool valve can be made to control multiple functions using the same hydraulic circuit.

CPI Lift Control Switch Mounting Options

dual_panelCPI essentially offers two options here: You may have your switch in a standalone pendant configuration to which you can apply your own mounting; or you can have it mounted in one of our stainless steel waterproof switch panels.

CPI Switch panels come in a variety of configurations: separate circuits, in-series, and in-series with interlock (to prevent both switches from operating at the same time).

We can produce multiple switch panels that also include additional electrical components such as LED indicator lamps per customer specification.

Next time you need a lift, why not give CPI a call?

Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/lift-controls-reach-new-heights-with-cpi-switches/